Unpleasant Facts: The Life Of George Orwell

We all know Orwell from his writings, primarily from Animal Farm and 1984. But, what do we know about the man himself, except for words that he added to our lexicon such as "newspeak" which Orwell himself never used. His life is as remarkable as his writing and it can truly be said that he wrote from his own experiences. I found a BBC special about his life that tells it in his own words and pictures from his life.

According to Orwell, born Eric Blair in 1903, "writers are vain, selfish and lazy." He compares writing to having some dreadful disease. As Blair he wrote Such Such Were the Joys very early in his career but it wasn't published until after his death because of fears on the part of publishers of libel suits. Blair was put into boarding school at age 8 and turned out to be a horrifying experience during which he began wetting the bed. For this he was beaten. He then went on to school at Eton, the jewel of British aristocratic schools. After Eton, when his classmates went off to university, Blair went into service. He went to Burma, part of the British Indian Empire as a policeman. In his words he was, "a part of the machinery of despotism." He left after 5 years of service out of conscience.

Blair suffered from chronic respiratory problems that turned out to be TB. While in Paris he worked at odd jobs including a stint as a dishwasher living hand to mouth. It was here that he discovered the nobility of poverty. Poverty, in fact, seemed to fascinate Blair and he wrote about the plight of the underclass. Even in the documentary, particularly the interviews, a very distinct class system in Britain is very evident. To avoid embarrassment to his family, he changed his name to George Orwell in 1933. George from King George and Orwell from a river of the same name. It was this year that he published Down and Out in Paris and London. It was picked up by a left-wing publisher who thought it disgusting but important. Orwell described his clothing as "having a patine of antique filth."

He moved to Hempstead in the north of London an enclave of left-wing intellectuals. He despised the phoniness of "the bearded fruit juice drinkers so interested in a classless society." He saw them for the charlatans that they were calling them snobs who looked at society through the wrong end of a telescope. I guess liberals never change.

He then wrote The Road to Wigan Pier. It showed in very profound terms the plight of Britain's working underclass. To fully grasp their plight Orwell worked a day in a coal mine and wrote of the miners in glowing terms. The book was very well received and became successful. It was then that war broke out on Spain and Orwell went to fight against Fascism. In his words he joined the militia "to fight for common decency." He was shot through the neck and spent a long time recovering because of his TB. When the Communists took over, he learned a very important lesson: The only difference between Fascism and Communism is the uniforms of the oppressors. Since his experience in Spain (1936) everything he wrote has been against totalitarianism.

During WWII, Orwell joined the Home Guard in which he spoke out against the British upper (ruling) class. "A revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot must be a revolutionary." He worked at BBC as a propagandist until 1943 when he felt that he could be more useful as a writer, he was frustrated that his work was doing no actual good. It was then that he wrote Animal Farm. Animal Farm was written as a warning against trusting the Russians. It wasn't immediately published. Publishers were worried that because the oppressors were characterized by the pigs, the Russians might become offended. Orwell didn't care.

In 1984, Orwell warned against the dangers of political conformity. If you do not fight constantly against totalitarianism, it will happen as an almost naturally occurring phenomenon. "As ideas can corrupt language... language can corrupt ideas." 1984 was indeed a compilation and reflection of his life experiences. He speaks about it eloquently at the end of the video. To me the most meaningful part was near the end when talking about writing 1984, he said something about when you're ill your thoughts transform from ideas into poorly expressed platitudes. This is an excellent documentary, very well done and certainly worth watching to the end. Orwell wasn't just a writer, he was a prophet.